In Her Auburn Hair
by The Smiling Shadow
Summary: Augustus Sinclair has been captured by Sofia Lamb and her Family. He is undergoing the conditioning and the treatments that would transform him into Subject Omega. He begins to confuse reality and fantasy, his memories with that of someone else's. He tries to hold onto who he is, remembering this girl he once loved and the sun shining in her auburn hair.


He had made it a point to always investigate the inner workings of each of his businesses. When he went into a new venture he wanted to know what he was getting himself into. Everything from the technology solutions, to the hotels, to drinks, and toys, and prisons. He wasn't like Ryan in that way. He wasn't going to stick his head in the sand and wait for the whole thing to blow over. Times were tough, you couldn't turn on the radio or walk out into the streets without seeing that. "The Great Chain" was faltering and he knew exactly how he was going to make money off of it. It was going to be through the suffering of others, of course.

Ryan Industries had taken control over Fontaine Futuristics, the production of new plasmids had never ceased, thus the need for "volunteers" continued and even increased. He was walking through the back stage of Futuristics, where the Persephone inmates were taken to be cleaned up and made presentable. He stood aside as the make-up girls rushed in and out, prepping the boys with wigs and blush. It was spooky seeing them up close like this, even he had to admit that. He could see the tumors growing through the skin, their hair was falling out, they were nothing but skin and bones.

You could see the hopelessness in the room, you could cut the despair in the air with a knife, it made him sick. He reached into his pocket, pulling out a cigarette. The lighter came next but even after a few strikes, it wouldn't take.

"Sir?"

Sinclair looks up, the nearest inmate looks back at him. He's sitting in his make-up chair, apparently the girls were finished with him. He had layers and layers of stuff on his face, hiding the scars and the bruises, a wig was covering up the bald patches all over his scalp. He had a square jaw, must have been a big, handsome guy once upon a time, but now he'd lost half his weight somewhere in the prison. Nonetheless, he leaned over to Sinclair, holding up two fingers.

"Do you need…?"

Sinclair didn't know what he meant for a moment.

"Oh, yeah, that'd be great."

Sinclair holds out his cigarette and with the snap of his fingers, fire grew out of his fingertips. Sinclair takes a big breath of smoke and nods to the inmate.

"Thanks, kid."

"Sure thing. We don't see much of you down here."

"Hm?"

"The suit. Suits don't come down here."

"Ah, well, let's just say I make it a habit of going down where people don't always like to go."

"I know what you mean. It's quiet."

"What was that?"

"It's quiet, down deep. In the ocean. All you can hear is your heart."

Sinclair stares, the inmate suddenly realizes what he's said.

"I'm sorry." The inmate tries, "I'm not making sense, I don't get to talk, the Plasmids do something to ya. Make it hard to talk. Sometimes you forget the words."

"Don't worry about it, kid. Say, don't I know you?"

"I get that a lot, I'm sort of famous." The inmate says with a devious grin.

"Is that so? You'll have to excuse me, I get all woozy around celebrities."

"I'm the diver. From the papers. I used to be a diver, that's what I meant. Deep sea diving."

"You're Johnny Topside!" Sinclair exclaims.

"…I'd go on a good dive, and it would be…so quiet. Not like this at all."

"You should hear the racket outside these walls."

"I hear rumors."

"Best to assume they're all true at this point."

"I feel good. Hidden away. Can't hear the racket, can't be seen. Get to die quietly."

Another breath of smoke, Sinclair ignores the dismal line. The show runner appears, coming over to the inmates, clapping his hands, directing everyone to stand and smile.

"I guess this is goodbye." Johnny Topside says. He pushes himself on his chair, his arms shaking on the weight of his bones.

"Maybe. Maybe not. I should be swingin' by here now and again. How about I count on you bein' my lighter?"

"I don't know about that."

"Why? All you gotta do is snap your fingers." Sinclair snaps his own.

"I don't think you'll be back here. Suits don't come back."

"Come here."

Sinclair extends his hand and looks at Johnny straight in the eyes.

"I like to look a man in the eye when I give him my word. I'll come back, and you'll be my lighter."

Johnny takes it and they shake.

"All right, sure." Johnny shakes his head.

"Little do you know I get the best out of this deal, I'm becomin' something of a chain smoker."

"We'll see, I might not be around next time you need a light."

He could hear the Crawlers clanging against the metal ceilings, they were coming for him and they were coming fast. They were giggling to themselves, getting closer, whispering the doctrine of the Family. He felt a stabbing pain in his leg as his calf muscle was torn apart. He hit the ground with a thud, landing on his gun. He pulled it out and fired wildly into the dark. The clanging ceased, but the laughing did not. Out from the shadows a Crawler leapt down on him, slamming a hand-like foot over his mouth and face.

"Quiet now, no more lies!" The Crawler yelled.

He slammed Sinclair's head into the ground.

Sofia Lamb descended out of the shadows like the Devil herself, poised and calm, ready to usher in the end of the world. She look down at him like somebody looks down at a stubborn cockroach, surviving a few attacks of the boot. The splicers were there, who knows how many, watching from the darkness like some sick audience. They were whispering to each other, laughing and crying like they always did.

He tried to lift his head, but felt the tug and weight of wires and machines keeping him down. He realized he was on some sort of medical table with a variety of machines surrounding him. Wires danced down from the walls, entering into some unseen opening in the back of his head. He felt the warmth of his own blood pooling on the surface of the table. This wasn't good.

"Hello there, darlin'." He tried to be coy.

Sofia Lamb only stared.

"Now, let's be reasonable here, I am a businessman, after all, I know there's always some sort of deal that can be…"

"Stop talking."

A surge ran down his spine and to his fingertips, suddenly his throat began to tighten until he could no longer speak.

"You spend far too much time talking. In the end, it's all empty, just words, just the air. You think this lack of empathy is a strength, but I will show you how utterly wrong you are."

She speaks in her quiet way, thinly veiled anger and hate.

"Do you think so little of me, Sinclair? That I could be swayed at the point of my triumph? I suppose you can only expect the worst out of others when you set yourself as the example. But I will show you, Sinclair, the extent of my mercy."

She leans over him, her arm reaching over to the machines connected to his brain.

"I would not be so barbaric as to torture you. Not with the tools of the self. Not with knives or bullets. There is a much more humane way to harm you."

She presses a few buttons on the machine and it hums to life.

"This machine is directly connected to your brain and spinal cord. I can send signals up the A and C-delta fibers, your neural receptors will fire into tiny explosions by the hundreds and you will experience pain like you've never felt before."

She reaches down and lifts his hand. He is surprised by how gentle she is, how soft her skin feels. Like a snake wrapping around you right before it squeezes the life out of you. It always feels soothing right before the end. She holds up his hand, examining his palm.

"It's been a long time since these hands have had a day of work. I'm sure you're quite proud of that, but your decadence has made you weak, Sinclair. You are unfamiliar with suffering. Allow me to reacquaint you."

A few more buttons and he can't even hear himself screaming. His cries echo down the empty halls of Persephone, reverberating against the corroding walls, until it sounds like something less than human. Every inch of him sang out in agony. Like a thousand knives were stabbing him all over, and there were sewing needs in his eyes, reaching back into his skull. The dull, constant torment joined in, like a low bass behind all the terror. It felt like he was being skinned alive a thousand times over, his arteries and veins were being plucked away like guitar strings.

The cries continue. The Family rejoices, laughing and dancing to the noise. These are the screams of Augustus Sinclair, this is the death of the Self, at last, they will all be together and they shall see the sun.

It only took forty-two seconds before Sinclair told them everything they wanted.

"Rest now, you have earned your new life." Sofia Lamb tells him before the world goes dark once again.

He awoke with a splitting headache down the center of his head. The room was spinning when he finally opened his eyes, and he somehow felt disconnected from everything around him. He was in a bed now, but he was floating, he was in some new room, but he was a million miles away, somewhere deep in the ocean, where all was quiet and still, and there was no more pain or crying. He tugged at his arms, bound to the bed and wires connecting veins to more machines. He doesn't feel it though, he's floating in the water, in the cold and quiet. He's never felt this way before. So calm and serene, weightless in the water, separated from the crushing pressure with a diving suit.

It's going to be beautiful, his wife says, our new home by the sea, where we can raise our daughter.

"You've never tasted Adam before have you, Sinclair?"

A voice rings out through the water, clear as a bell. He turns to see Sofia Lamb sitting upon a leather chair on the other side of the room, a clipboard in her lap. He is in this room but it still feels like the water. He lifts his arm, Adam drips into his blood. Where did his wife go?

"It's quite powerful, isn't it?" Sofia Lamb leans forward, into the light, beckoning his attention. "It puts your body in a state of change, growing new cells that need only instruction for what to build. But more than that, Adam taken from the body of another holds traces of memory."

He hears her but does not listen, she is not important. Where is his wife?

"If one is not careful, they can become lost. Confused."

He can hear her humming that lullaby down the hall.

"_Sinclair." _

Sofia Lamb bangs the heel of her shoe down on the ground, he suddenly turns to her with full attention. He realizes there is no wife.

"You must listen to me." She tells him.

"I…I don't have anything more to say to you." He tells her, the weightless feeling slowly lifting away. "You took it all."

"Yes, I know. Now I want to return the favor." She leans back in that leather chair of hers. "I want to welcome you into the Family." She tells him.

"I already had one of those. Wasn't a great experience. Not interested in another."

He can barely stay in the room with her. Every second he almost floats away. There's too much Adam in his blood for him to keep his head on straight.

"Delta is dead, Sinclair. There's no one coming to rescue you. This is the only option you have."

He looks at her, and then smiles.

"The kid's not dead. You wouldn't kill him like that."

"Are you so sure?"

"I know you. I've dealt with some form of you all my life. You wouldn't let him die without getting' your revenge. He took Eleanor away from you. He took your Utopian. Surely that deserves more punishment before he dies?"

She stares at him, with her cold and calculating eyes. He laughs and falls back down into his bed, and even when his head hits the pillow he keeps on falling, letting it all come over him. He floats again, away from her, away from that room. Out into the ocean.

"Besides, I don't need anyone rescuin' me. I've been doin' just fine so far."

He feels something hit his chest like a baseball going ninety miles an hour. He tightens on the impact, gasping for breath. He looks down at a green substance, like oil growing on his chest. The oil glows green and digs into his skin. He can feel it, he can feel it digging into his ribs, into his blood and then… Then it's okay. The pain is gone. The floating comes back. He is calm. It's okay. Everything is okay. The room glows green with Hypnotize, and everything is okay. He turns to Sofia Lamb and smiles.

"Hey there, sweetheart."

"There, now you're feeling a bit more cooperative, aren't you, Sinclair?"

"I think you'll find that I am always more cooperative in the company of a beautiful woman. What can I do for you?"

"I'm a psychiatrist, Sinclair, you're here because you need help. Guidance."

"A psychiatrist? You're not that lady from all the posters are you? The one you can hear on the radio, arguin' with Andy Ryan? I…I don't need this. I'm sure you're great, and you are beautiful, but I…I don't need…"

He starts to sit up, tugging at his arms so that he can leave, but he sees the arm restraints and the IV pouring Adam into blood. He doesn't understand it, he starts pulling harder, something tells him he needs to get out of there.

"Tell me about Eliza." Sofia Lamb says.

He suddenly stops and forgets about the restraints.

"I haven't thought about Eliza Pole since…since…"

"You are heartsick, Sinclair, you're overwrought with despair."

"I think you may be…exaggeratin'."

"You loved her, Sinclair."

"I did…I just…didn't…"

He's looking around the room, everything is glowing green and he can't shake this overwhelming calm.

"She was your wife."

"No, no, we never got married. She was…she was gone before I could…"

"She was your wife, Sinclair."

No, he wants to say. That can't be right. That's not how it was. They met up in New York, she was still studying up there and he was acquiring a new business, and he can't even remember the name of the shop, but he remembers the smile she gave him. It was summer in New York. Hot as hell, and the sun shined in her auburn hair, she was smiling at him from across the street. She loved him, but they didn't marry, that's not how it went. That can't be.

But then he thinks about it more and he can remember a wedding on the beach. The sun is shining in her auburn hair, she is smiling at him from down the aisle. He can see that smile through her veil.

"No. I don't…remember…"

Sofia Lamb reaches over to his arm, she tugs at his IV. The Adam drips faster into his veins and Hypnotize calms his soul, he starts to float, watching Lamb lovingly send him away. He's suddenly very tired and very happy. Lamb is beautiful and he reaches to touch her lips. She shoots her head up at him with a look that could kill, but he can't tell. He puts his head to her forehead. He wants to sleep in her arms. But she only pushes back, onto the pillow. Eliza Pole's auburn hair shines in the sun, Sofia Lamb is going to take all the pain away. Eliza is dead and gone, at her head a grass-green turf, at her heels a stone, but it's okay. Sofia Lamb is here to take the pain away.

"I married her by the ocean." He tells Sofia Lamb.

"Yes, that's right."

"I loved the ocean, she hadn't seen the ocean before …Girl from Kansas, never seen the ocean before we met."

"You had a family."

He lays in the bed, staring up at the ceiling as it glows green. The bed is the sea, he floats on it endlessly. He thinks for a moment, but he can't seem to form any thoughts. Words and memories rise up from his mind, but he can't make any sense of them.

"You had a daughter."

Daughter. Yes. A daughter.

A beautiful baby girl that was so small, he could hold her in the palm of his hand. He is a young man again and he's holding his daughter. She is quiet and small, sleeping in his arms. Lying above his heart, where he keeps her always.

But that's not how it goes for him. He's Augustus Sinclair, he never gets what he really wants. He hides his losses in the businesses and the money. The people come crying, they say you have a heart of stone, Sinclair, but he knows better than them. Don't come to me with your nonsense, if you wanted a better life for yourself, you would have figured out a way to make it happen. Like him. It isn't easy. You have to fight your way up, but that's how it goes, that's life. He was supposed to marry Eliza and have a family, but it didn't happen, that's life. It couldn't have happened. Did it happen?

"How are you…? What are you doing to me?"

Sofia Lamb just calmly looks at him, but he knows somehow, this isn't right. He hasn't thought of Eliza in all these years, but now he can see the sun shining in her auburn hair. He can see her smiling at him from across the street. Memories he hadn't thought of, resurfacing like they're happening right in front of him. He can feel the touch of her skin, her hand in his own, the warm Georgian nights that he took her home to his big empty house and she ran down the halls laughing like a school girl. I've got nothing to fill this home with, not yet, he tells her as she's kissing his neck.

She gets sick cause he's Sinclair and he doesn't get what he wants, that's life. She's sick and she's dying and all the money in the world isn't going to stop that. There wasn't any time to get married. But the wedding, her veil and her smile. He can hear everyone clapping, her mother is crying. It's all so beautiful.

"I couldn't…" He tries to think of what he wants to say, but the words won't come.

He wants to tell Lamb she's wrong, but a splinter in his mind stops him, a voice in his head calm and authoritative, telling him that she is right, he is wrong. He was always wrong. He was always so cruel, that's why Eliza left him. He should have helped those crying people, he should have softened his heart, those people were kind to him, they were like family.

"A daughter?"

Sofia Lamb nods.

"I had a daughter."

Sofia Lamb nods.

That doesn't make any sense, but he can see her, his little girl, growing bigger and stronger every day. He can hear her running through the halls, her mother chasing her. The sea air blows through the curtains, he can smell the ocean. No, that's not it. He never lived by ocean. He had that empty house in Georgia, he was going to fill it with memories with Eliza. He took her to Coney Island, she lived in New Jersey, of course she'd seen the ocean. This isn't right. This is wrong.

Then he thinks of his daughter, sleeping soundly in his arms.

That just sounds so much better. So much more beautiful.

He lays there on the bed, staring up at the green ceiling. Sofia Lamb takes his hand, scraping her soft fingers against his. He slowly turns to her. He has tears in his eyes. How long has he been crying for?

"I know this is difficult, Sinclair." Sofia Lamb says, and he believes her, he believes she understands him. "That is why you have come to me."

"Yes." He nods slowly at her.

"You're alone. You've been alone all your life. You're sick and tired of it."

"Yes. Lord, yes."

He grabs her hand tightly, he's crying louder now and he can't stop it. He feels despair open inside his heart like a flower, and there's a pain in his lungs. She understands, Sofia Lamb was once alone like him, she understands him. He is here because he needs her help, because she can take the pain away. It all makes sense now, he was a fool for trying to deny it. A fool for trying to fight it.

"You had a family once." She says.

"They're gone now."

"I know."

"All gone."

"What if I could give them back to you?"

The tears begin to dry, he looks up at Sofia Lamb, a glowing green halo around her head. Her words are true, she would not lie to him, she would never lie to him. He is tired and he's floating away, now only tethered to the room by Sofia's Lamb caring hand.

"We are The Family, Sinclair. We welcome you with open arms into our loving embrace. Together, we build a better future for all of humanity. The Utopian leads the way to Paradise for all. There, you will be one with us all, together again with your wife and daughter."

The sun shines in her auburn hair. He can smell the ocean breeze. His daughter skips along beside him.

"Yes."

He's a million miles away in the deep dark ocean where all is quiet and still. Sofia Lamb lets him go. She pushes him back, his head hits his pillow, and he is gone, floating away onto the ocean, where Eliza kisses his neck and his daughter laughs. Yes. That's how it should be. That's how it must be.

Sofia Lamb stands above him, watching Augustus Sinclair enter a more peaceful sleep than death. She lets his hand go, and it lingers in the air, still reaching for her, trying desperately to hold onto something. But there's no time for that now. She looks up to the mirrored window in the wall.

"Do it now." She commands her doctors and her splicers. "Before the Plasmid wears off."

They come into the room and push Sinclair's bed away, to the lab where he will be transformed into something else entirely. One last one, Sofia Lamb tells herself. The Omega of the Alpha Series.

He's in a dream he doesn't want to wake up from. Living out the memories of someone else's life. Someone who did marry a girl from Kansas by the ocean. Someone who did have a daughter. Someone who dived down deep into the ocean where it is quiet and still. A stranger's life, so much more beautiful than his own, full of so much more joy and so much more sadness. It could be his, it was his. He was that man now, floating away in his own sleep.

He didn't even feel them putting on the Alpha Series Suit. They pulled and tugged at his arms and legs, stabbing gears into his joints so that the suit would work. He didn't feel the Eve being stabbed into his back, flowing out into his body. He didn't feel the wires they stuck in his brain, or the electrical shots they sent up and down his spine.

They were nearly done with the Hypnotize Plasmid began to fade in color. The green glow ceased and Sinclair knew who he was again. He awoke, feeling that his limbs were heavy. He pulled at them, wanting to scratch an itch on the back of his head. He looked down to see himself already encased, trapped in the Alpha Suit. He pulled and felt the itch on the back of his head were all the wires inside his skull. He saw the doctors, all with warped faces of any splicer, all wearing Lamb's calling card butterfly pin on their chest. He tried to sit up, but the suit was too heavy, he was too weak and drugged up to do anything.

He started to scream and cry.

"LAMB!" He was shouting through his tears. "I'LL KILL YOU! I SWEAR, I'LL KILL YOU."

"No you won't."

He looks up and sees her standing in the doorway.

"You! You twisted goddamn psychopath! You're messin' with my head. Ruinin' my mind! My memories, my Eliza!"

"I was not lying to you, Sinclair, if that is any consolation. We will all be together soon, as one Family."

"Eliza...! You made me…made me forget…I don't…I can't…"

"That's enough. Stop crying."

Suddenly his tears stop, and he doesn't feel sad enough to cry anymore. He looks up at her.

"The conditioning seems to be working." Lamb nods to her doctors.

"Conditionin'…?"

"Quiet."

His throat tightens and he can no longer speak. She walks over to him.

"You were right, Sinclair. Delta is not dead, not yet. I could not allow him that release without further suffering. His chance for forgiveness is gone. In you, I found the perfect weapon to strike him at his very heart."

His mind screams out with a thousand terrible thoughts, but the words do not come. He starts to scream, he pulls at his arms and his legs, trying desperately to rise, but the suit is his skin now, and he has not been taught how to live within it. He pulls and screams but goes nowhere. Only sound and fury.

"You're making a fool of yourself." Sofia Lamb says. "Stop this at once."

He doesn't want to, but he feels his limbs go weak, and he falls back into the suit. She leans over him, staring down into his very soul, seeing nothing but a lonely little boy.

"If you have something to say, you may say it, but quietly and calmly." She tells him.

He is quiet for a moment, his lips trembling, he wants to scream but his lips and his throat won't let him. He starts to shake, the tears come again, but every single one hurts.

"I can't even…remember…Did I marry Eliza?"

Sofia Lamb stares at him, before turning away.

"Don't turn your back on me, Lamb!" He screams after her. "You can't control Eleanor, Delta's goin' to stop you. He's going to stop you and your whole damn Family."

"To get to me, he's going to have to go through you."

"…Good."

She turns to him, and he's grinning at her. She stares, cold and calculating, thinking. She turns away.

"I do hope you are the one to end him, Sinclair. You are part of our Family now, weather you like it or not, I do not want to see you die. I have overseen the creation of many new Protectors, Sinclair, I can see you would be an excellent knight for us."

"Go to hell."

She stares at him, undeterred.

"We've put up mental blocks in your brain, Sinclair. We've broken you down at a genetic level and rebuilt something much more pure. Your DNA is changing, and so it is changing you. You'll begin to feel the affects soon. Then, finally, the burden of who you were will be lifted, you'll live again as one of our Fathers. Free of your memories, free of the self."

She leans down over him.

"I don't even know if Eliza was her name." She tells Sinclair.

She nods to her doctors and they pull out the wires in his brain with one tug. He starts screaming for them to stop. He struggles and pulls at the suit until he can feel blood filling up his gloves and his boots. He screams until he hardly has a voice anymore. He screams when they put the helmet on, which partly silences him except to his own ears. He screams until there is nothing left in him. The doctors leave him then, he is encased in his new body, unable to break free.

He sits there, and misses the deep ocean, where it is quiet and still. Hours seem to pass, he can hear people running by, Sofia Lamb calls out to her troops over the PA system, but he can't make out the words. He grows tired with every breath.

Delta, Kid, please, hurry. Take the lifeboat, it's all yours. Don't blame yourself. Let young Eleanor see the sun.

He retraces his life. He remembers Panama, his grandfather's funeral. The way he used to fear his father's yell. The maids that cleaned his father's home. The hot summers in Georgia. The homework he hated to do. He remembered growing up. His father dying. Starting a business. Meeting Eliza on the New York day. That's where it gets fuzzy, so he stops there. He stops on the image of her auburn hair shining in the sun.

Then he goes back, back to the beginning, and starts all over again. But it gets harder. He can't remember much of Panama the second time around. The maids don't have faces. The summers blend together. School doesn't exist at all. He doesn't remember how his father died. What business he first started. He remembers Eliza on the New York Day, with her auburn hair shining the sun.

Lamb's walls grow taller. He finds himself standing in a room. There's a key in his hand. Delta is there. Eleanor is near, he can feel it. He doesn't know how he got there. He is in a prison. His prison. He has a gun in his hands. Kid, please hurry. Take the lifeboat, it's all yours. Son, I built this place, and I did rent you out to those, I wish I had time to make amends. Don't leave me like this. We were going to go places but we have to say our fare-thee-wells.

The third time he doesn't recall Panama at all. He remembers his father yelling. The sun was hot once. Business is difficult. Eliza with her auburn hair shining in the sun.

He is in the prison. He has a gun. Delta is there. Eleanor is near. Don't leave me like this. Delta comes into the room and he lifts up the gun. They are fighting and Delta shoots fire and ice and lightning from his hands. There's a lifeboat, take it.

The fourth time he doesn't recognize the man who is yelling at him.

The prison. Delta. Eleanor. Fighting. Fire and ice and lightning. Screaming and tears. They were going places, weren't they? Together. To the surface. Like a family.

Don't leave me like this.

Then there's just Eliza. Even this begins to fade with practice. He forgets the details of her face. The color of her eyes. The scar on her forehead from when she fell as a child. The shape of her lips. He can't remember her button nose, her smile, or how that smile made his heart skip a beat.

Delta. Eleanor. Family.

Then it's just the sun shining in her auburn hair.


End file.
